The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3 eBook

Man that is born of a woman, was chanted, not read;
and the anthem, besides being immeasurably tedious,
would have served as well for a nuptial. The
real serious part was the figure of the Duke of Cumberland,
heightened by a thousand melancholy circumstances.
He had a dark brown adonis, and a cloak of black cloth,
with a train of five yards. Attending the funeral
of a father could not be pleasant: his leg extremely
bad, yet forced to stand upon it near two hours; his
face bloated and distorted with his late paralytic
stroke, which has affected, too, one of his eyes, and
placed over the mouth of the vault, into which, in
all probability, he must himself so soon descend;
think how unpleasant a situation! he bore it all
with a firm and unaffected countenance. This
grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque
Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying
the moment he came into the chapel, and flung himself
back in a stall, the archbishop hovering over him
with a smelling-bottle; but in two minutes his curiosity
got the better of his hypocrisy, and he ran about
the chapel with his glass to spy who was or was not
there, spying with one hand, and mopping his eyes with
the other. Then returned the fear of catching
cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking
with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning
round, found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing
upon his train, to avoid the chill of the marble.
It was very theatric to look down into the vault,
where the coffin lay, attended by mourners with lights.
Clavering, the groom of the bedchamber, refused to
sit up with the body, and was dismissed by the King’s
order.

I have nothing more to tell you, but a trifle, a very
trifle. The King of Prussia has totally defeated
Marshal Daun.(116) This, which would have been prodigious
news a month ago, is nothing to-day; it only takes
its turn among the questions, “Who is to be
groom of the bedchamber? what is Sir T. Robinson to
have?” I have been to Leicester-fields to-day;
the crowd was immoderate; I don’t believe it
will continue so. good night. Yours ever.

(116) At Torgau, on the 3d of November. An animated
description of this desperate battle is given by Walpole
in his Memoires, vol. ii. p. 449.-E.

As a codicil to my letter, I send you the bedchamber.
There are to be eighteen lords, and thirteen grooms;
all the late King’s remain, but your cousin
Manchester, Lord Falconberg, Lord Essex, and Lord
Flyndford, replaced by the Duke of Richmond, Lord
Weymouth, Lord March, and Lord Eglinton: the last
at the request of the Duke of York. Instead
of Clavering, Nassau, and General Campbell, who is
promised something else, Lord Northampton’s
brother and Commodore Keppel are grooms. When
it was offered to the Duke of Richmond, he said he
could not accept it, unless something was done for
Colonel Keppel, for whom he has interested himself;
that it would look like sacrificing Keppel to his own
views. This is handsome; Keppel is to be equery.